Motivational interviewing: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Motivational Interviewing is a well-known, scientifically tested method of counselling clients developed by Miller and Rollnick and viewed as a useful intervention strategy in the treatment of lifestyle problems and disease.

To evaluate the effectiveness of motivational interviewing in different areas of disease and to identify factors shaping outcomes. DESIGN OF STUDY: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials using motivational interviewing as the intervention. METHOD: After selection criteria a systematic literature search in 16 databases produced 72 randomised controlled trials the first of which was published in 1991. A quality assessment was made with a validated scale. A meta-analysis was performed as a generic inverse variance meta-analysis.